


fall in at first glance.

by subterfuge (oikita)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Jane Austen references, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, Non-explicit Making Out, Song fic, Vignette, mentioned kuroatsu/atsukuroo, side osaomi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oikita/pseuds/subterfuge
Summary: There's no right or wrong. Even law itself can never define what really is right and wrong. There's always the essence of defiance when the opposing party is chosen. Love works like that. There's no textbook for love. It's a language only the heart can teach and the mind can nourish.
Relationships: Komori Motoya/Suna Rintarou
Kudos: 9





	fall in at first glance.

**Author's Note:**

> hello. fun fact: this fic was hard to write because i started writing this during the beginning of my busy week and we didn't have wifi for three days. it was a catastrophe if you ask me, hehe. 
> 
> this has two other versions because i wanted to preserve the older drafts. basically, this final one has parts which were scrapped from the other drafts, cut and separated like a scrapbook journal. 
> 
> [listen to this and consider liking the playlist! i might add more songs in the future.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/261B4DwjDA5ZyjTwDVQela?si=T-8s_0SKT-mb6uMfcwbq7w)
> 
> the title is from jay som's tenderness. it's the irony of this fic that's why i thought it was appropriate to make it the title!
> 
> nothing to warn here i think? if there is, please let me know.

"I like him," Kiyoomi says, nonchalant. Stoic. "I like Osamu and I want to pursue him." 

The university library is quiet, tranquil even, with the lack of physical presence and noise. Motoya wants to squeal, he wants to smack Kiyoomi's head and earn a harsher punch in the end. 

Motoya barely sees his cousin smile, barely hears him pursuing anything other than the routines he likes to keep doing. He doesn't seem ultimately cautious anymore, but he appears to have been prepared for it all along. 

It is as if liking Osamu is neither a skill or a hobby he picks up from doing all the time. The act of loving someone comes like a gift — by the time you're born, it is already there. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Kiyoomi said yes,” Osamu smirks. “We’re going on a date this Saturday.” 

“A little  _ thank you  _ would be fine,” Rintarou rolls his eyes, toying with his phone at the dinner table. “If it weren’t for the almighty Suna Rintarou,  _ OsaOmi _ will never sail,” he adds, perky eyebrow raised. 

If the gods give Rintarou the gift of honesty, he will admit to you that he doesn’t know the meaning of love. He doesn’t know how it works, where to find it, why it is the profound feeling that resides in the human heart like an inherent element. Like the world is merely a subject to the power of it, that if love decides to put the world in despair, it can easily do so.

Osamu and Kiyoomi deserve each other, he knows this. Even if Rintarou didn’t play the matchmaker role, they will meet and they will find the world in each other’s eyes. Because the planet is small, the country is small, and every place has a lonely heart waiting for its owner to find the missing key to open the lock, or to find another one to keep it warm. Kiyoomi deserves the kind of love that he needs and wants, and Osamu deserves someone who can never take his care for granted. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s the infamous Saturday and Rintarou is alone. His roommate is bound to get his lips kissed by the end of the night, and he’s staying in his room, wrapped up in a blanket with his childhood, worn out teddy bear. A tub of ice cream sits on his lap, moisture from the frost of the refrigerator staining the blanket wet. 

Learn from Rintarou: it is not advisable to watch  _ Fallen Angels _ when you’re yearning for non-committal affection and want to set your university on fire. He is watching the movie bitterly, wishing he’d also cling onto someone as their motorcycle speeds up in the tunnel with neon lights during the nights when the wind is cold and hostile. 

(  _ Why not make it real with Motoya? _

_ Make  _ what  _ real? _

_ Whatever you guys are. _

Rintarou was visibly confused.  _ We’re just friends, though? _

_ Friends don’t kiss and tell.  _ )

Not that Osamu initially wanted Rintarou to remember the havoc he caused with himself. He and his propensity to avoid commitment makes his emotions acquiescent to all the stupidity he enables himself to do. Maybe Osamu  _ did  _ desire to do that on purpose to spite him, but he’d do that out of affection. If there can be another person that Osamu could treat with brotherly care, it’s Rintarou, his roommate for three years, friend of six years. 

Rintarou thinks about Motoya —  _ contemplates  _ what he feels for him. Is it because he’s envious of his friends? Is it because the yearning went too far? Or maybe he’s overthinking things he shouldn’t let himself stress over. The mundanity of the situation will only grow worse if he tries to dissect it when there’s nothing to look at. 

But does he….. like Motoya after all? That’s the mystery. No one else can tell if he does. 

He just likes his company, that’s all there is to it. 

And his cuddles, his kisses, his bites, his voice, his eccentric self, the way he allows everyone to loosen up around him. His brightness resonates more with an afternoon sunset just as Rintarou’s own brightness glows similar to an early morning sunrise. 

Yeah, he  _ totally  _ doesn’t like Motoya to the point of romance. Yep, not at all. Definitely no sarcasm. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He likes thinking about him, though. 

And his mind consents it, even if it just prolongs the feeling of being  _ wanted _ . Flashbacks. Rintarou likes remembering all the times he didn’t waste with Motoya, because he spent it with him. You aren’t a shallow-thinker if you realize that the difference between waste and spend is immense, like comparing a garbage can to a basket of clean clothes. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 01: 

  
  
  


“I spent a lot of money for you and all you repay me is putting eyeliner on my eyes.” 

“Not on your actual eyeballs, your eyelids.”

“Whatever.”

Rintarou positions himself on Motoya’s lap, one hand cupping the latter’s cheek to hold his head in place while the other carefully outlines the eyelid with black, precision sloping the line perfectly. It is as if he does this quite often for the precision to come off without a drop of sweat trickling down his forehead. 

There’s a catalyst of an unfamiliar feeling here. Rintarou has never seen his parents to be…  _ sweet _ . Endearing. And he’s never known what intimacy feels like unless it has to do with desires. This is weird, if he’s another person talking to himself. How does one create friendship through fake dating? He’s going to top off all the great romance movies out there for making his very own rollercoaster of a ride story, and they aren’t even in the highest tip of the track’s slope. 

Motoya has a sense of warmth in him that comes in details he does not know how to perceive. Perhaps it is the fluttering of a butterfly’s pair of wings that tickles his skin. He laughs gleefully, throwing his head back as his eyes disappear into crescent moon shapes. He has a sense of humor, something Rintarou only achieves when he’s insulting someone, and that kind of scars his ego. Sometimes he wants to make Motoya laugh without having to hit him. This is the catalyst — the hunger for a challenge that naturally appeases to the other’s feelings. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 02:

  
  
  


Rintarou wakes up, stirring and feels human heat against his skin. He moves away from Motoya to turn around, frowning when he sees the latter asleep. Mouth open.  _ Is this wrong? _ he asks himself when he takes the showerhead from the hook and rinses off the excess soap foams around the sleeping man’s body. No touching, just spraying water. Motoya doesn’t flinch to the temperature of the water. 

Taking off the clog, the water drains out of the tub and this is when Motoya wakes up, flustered when his first view is Rintarou offering him his towel. He takes it, thanking the other. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to finish washing you.” 

“I have hands, Toya,” Rintarou laughs as he dries his hair. 

“I like taking care of you.” The other heats up to that. “It’s ‘cause you’re a big damn baby and it’s a practice for when I decide to bring havoc into my life and have kids.” 

Rintarou has a sweet laugh. Sweet like strawberries against the smoke of cigarettes. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 03:

  
  
  
  


“But I want to be friends with you, Suna—”

“ _ Rin, _ ” oh. “You can call me Rin.”

“Rin,” slips like slick silk against his tongue. “I want to be friends with you, so when you need help, I’m a call away, except when I’m busy with school.” 

Motoya grins at him and stands up, straightening his pants’ creases. He has a good fashion style like Rintarou, except for the fact he mentioned owning neon clothes and matching them with the ugliest getups. The door opens and then closes, and then Motoya is gone. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Everything in this world has the capability to fall apart. 

The apartments are empty, owners at work. The apartment complex is not quiet, though. There are couples on different floors fighting. To look at the people better, the windows in their rooms face the right side of the building across another apartment building. Each window has a story to tell, different people and different problems. One has a broke college student breaking down, slumped against his bedroom door. Another is a sapphic couple painting flowers on each other’s biceps. The middle aged couple fighting is actually the same couple that was fighting a couple days ago. According to their child, they’re about to file a divorce. There’s the cliché saxophonist, with a pretty woman a floor higher than him, and then an old man on his rocking chair, sleeping. Later then, an ambulance will come to pick him up. The woman who likes to gossip tells everyone who lives in the building and even to the ones who live across. 

This street is somewhere near the entrance of the city — a downtown area near the suburbs. Motoya’s and Rintarou’s dormitories are in the city, but not the center. The locations of their dorms, however, are closer to almost every public establishment they’d ever want to go to. It is the reason why they live there, too, aside from being close to their universities. 

At night, they are asleep in different places. Some of the windows are dimmed, lights are off, while some are still open. There’s a couple — no, maybe not, according to the gossiping women — a man and a man, and they make love as the saxophonist keeps playing his instrument and the woman watching him is already in her bed. The grandfather sent to the hospital doesn’t come back. The apparent couple lets another man join them. From across, in the other building, a person watches all this while holding a mug, their gaze floating in the fog of the night. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Motoya is not safe from envy. 

He’s bored out of his mind, with his readings done and projects finished.  _ I could really use this time to do the leisures I can’t do on any other day _ , he thinks, standing in the middle of the room, roaming his eyes to find something to do. Kiyoomi had done the cleaning, all the shows he’s watching are finished, and he’s too lazy to find a new hobby or do some of the chores Kiyoomi left. Besides, he doesn’t like it when others do it, so Motoya leaves those chores be. 

Except when Suna Rintarou texts him of all days and hours, seemingly love-drunk. Not lovestruck. 

**rintarou s.**

this is why i hate romcom

**motoya k.**

you watch those? 

**rintarou s.**

when you’re lonely and in need of humanly affection, it just ✨happens✨

**motoya k.**

weirdo

**rintarou s.**

why are you calling yourself, bestie?

**motoya k.**

besties who make out 🤣🤣🤣

**rintarou s.**

stfu

are you free today? kinda wanna go out. i lonely :((

**motoya k.**

ok then u giant embryo

  
  
  
  
  


Motoya inserts the car key into the ignition and moves it clockwise, then drives off to Rintarou’s place. It’s traffic, so the supposedly quick travel to the other dormitory shouldn’t have taken so long right now. 

With nothing to occupy his mind, he remembers how childish Rintarou is, how even if he’s nonchalant, chill, and likely independent, he still wants to be held as if he were falling. 

When his mind is full of Rintarou and the adorable infantile tendencies he has, he is at peace, even in the middle of a stupid traffic jam. He likes remembering all those thing because every single day is sacred to him — that’s what his grandmother taught him and it scared him that the next day might be his last. So he tries to reminisce about everything, in case that’s the instance that happens tomorrow, next week, next month, year, or even hours later. 

He even recalls teaching him how to cook because without Osamu beside him, he’d be fucked. He can’t live on instant food and omurice daily, or the cold meals Osamu leaves him. Motoya recollects wasting rice and expensive cuts of meat just to teach him. 

Do you want to know more?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 01:

  
  
  
  


Komori Motoya is a happy-go-lucky type of person, one that enthuses, “whatever floats your boat”. He never backs down on a challenge, likes to keep a flowy outer core of friend groups and solid inner core of friends, those that deserve to keep up with his life until it ends. He doesn’t really know where to put Rintarou because all this time he’s only been questioning himself of what he could possibly do to make their  _ fling _ work, even when there’s no need to do so and they can always stop pretending as if this is all for nothing. No, he isn’t quite having a hard time doing so, everything they do is so normal to him that somehow, he almost thought they’re together. As in,  _ officially _ . 

The floor of Rintarou’s room is soft now that the rug is underneath them, with his folded arms beneath as his makeshift pillow. The co-owner of the dorm has his head accidentally laid down on Motoya’s shoulder, soft snores as he falls asleep thirty minutes into the movies. Tufts of his hair are disheveled, due to the movement of his head maybe, when he occasionally shifts his position. Rintarou is pretty, he knows this like it’s the first few words in a school textbook that he ends up memorizing for an exam. He has gorgeous eyes, the color even more so. Pale olive. And his nose, with its slope so sophisticated. His lips, perfect for a kiss, that Motoya seems to think of as lipstick that never wears out and its colors remain on his own mouth. Jaw, sharp but not enough to cut his skin. So when he presses the tip of his finger whenever they kiss, feels like proudly holding on the needle without wearing a thimble. 

Motoya drapes an arm over Rintarou’s lower torso. They fall asleep on the rug with the television on until morning. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 02:

  
  
  
  


They are familiar with each other’s bodies but don’t know the meaning behind the lines of their veins and the pumping of their hearts. 

Motoya’s bathtub can fit two people. The owner sitting on one end and his  _ should-be _ lover on the other. Knees are folded, arms folded on top. They’re both wet, staring at each other, like two statues. “I have shampoo and conditioner.” Rintarou lets the other man wash his hair. 

It’s stupidly and unbearably silent but they keep it around anyway. Motoya hums as he scrubs Rintarou’s hair while the other nearly falls asleep against his chest. He  _ does  _ fall asleep, all the more reason to make Motoya sigh. Rintarou’s body is pressed against his, and he can’t move, so after scrubbing his hair with shampoo and conditioner, he lays Rintarou’s head on one side of his chest, back of his head against Motoya’s right collarbone. He wraps his arms around Rintarou’s figure, his own head against the wall, fighting sleep. 

He wants to think. Contemplate. Talk with his brain. 

But with a pretty man sleeping against your naked body, you just  _ can’t _ . It’s going to frustrate you somehow. Learn from Motoya. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Flashback 03:

  
  
  
  
  


Rintarou locks the door behind him and joins Motoya in the bed with his belt unhooked, closing the distance between their lips as he leans in. He drives himself closer and closer to Motoya with every drag of his body against a jagged plain that is the latter's body. Motoya takes all of him, hushed by every bite, strengthened by every claw his nails scratch on the skin of Rintarou's back.

We don’t know what happens next because this isn’t our part of the story to tell. If you are curious, please put your mind to rest. There are many other things to think about other than fake lovers who are just pulling danger closer to their hearts. 

The light in the room splashed in red and violet, though, if you’re  _ that _ curious. Nothing else matters anymore, don’t be worried. We suggest you play a really good song from, we aren’t sure, Japanese Breakfast maybe? Mitski is also good. Have you heard the slower songs of Arctic Monkeys? Mad Sounds is a true melody of retrospective melancholy. Jay Som’s 

Tenderness is the song for our little narrative, dear friend. You can tell from the title. 

Oh, they’re singing now — wait, we mustn’t tell you. It is not a song, though. A song of something only they can sing, like a hymn made for them. 

They’re done now. Rintarou is hugging him like he’s never been embraced. Motoya is conflicted, eyebrows frowning and heart racing a beat faster. The reddish, purplish ceiling is swirling in his vision;  _ : Sunarin is a fucking drug _ . Yeah, he is, and the way Motoya goes into psychedelic consciousness is enough evidence.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’ve always liked nighttime drives.”

“You only do because you’re with me.”

“Assholes like you deserve to be thrown out of the car.”

“You love me, of course no one gets thrown out of the car.”

“I can reconsider, you know?” 

“Please don’t. The deadline of my paper is tomorrow and I’d rather be in school than in a hospital.” 

The sun sets in the horizon just in time when Motoya drives onto the bridge, where the closest star looks at its reflection on the river and paints the waters fuchsia, tangerine and yellow. 

Motoya brings Rintarou to the closest place he can consider quiet, with the tranquility matching the shifting colors in the sky. On the trunk of the car, they are lying on their backs, arms folded as makeshift pillows. Motoya points at the sky. 

“It’s a shooting star!”

“Dumb bitch, it’s a meteor.” 

“Will you stop ruining the fun, you big ass nerd.” 

“Smart-shamer.”

“No, I’m Komoriphobic.”

“It is not Komoriphobic to text Komori Motoya and ask him to take you out on a Saturday.” 

Rintarou wants to ask,  _ Then why did you agree?  _ but he doesn’t want to risk knowing Motoya’s answer. It’s a gamble knowing everything and ignoring anything. After all, at the end of the day, it is always better to be clueless than to have all the hints but never the courage to risk it all. 

But the silence is killing him, a slow thaw in the guts. He wants to ask, because it’ll give him peace — because it will stop bothering him when he can’t sleep at night. “Toya, what are we?” 

“Friends?”

“ _ Just  _ friends?”

“Best friends?” A pause. “Ultra mega best friends?” A pause. “Best friends for life?” A pause. “Super megatron best friends three thousand—”

“Oh my God, shut the fuck up if you have nothing good to say,” Rintarou hisses, moving a centimeter away from Motoya. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“We can be whatever we want to be, Rin. We can stay afloat against gravity, or let the force pull us down. We can be wherever the fuck we are now, or continuing driving towards somewhere further. Very much up to you. I’m down with anything you’ll want.”

“Stop being passive.”

“I’m not,” Motoya is no longer scented satirically. He’s serious now, very much, and has lost the comedic lilt in his voice. “I know you’ve never known what love is, it was never shown to you. I don't know much about it either but I see it in Kiyoomi and Osamu. Tetsurou and Atsumu — which  _ is  _ unexpected, seeing as Kuroo seems to have gone through a painfully awful breakup and with Atsumu around he quickly recuperated.”

Rintarou gulps down a lump nervously. “I just don’t want us to regret and lose not just a lover, but a best friend,” he sniffles. Fuck, man, fuck. Stoicism failed him today. “I don’t want what happened to my parents to happen to me. I don’t want to lose you either.”

“We haven’t even tried,” Motoya sighs. “But… it’s not over. We can sort everything out before we can tell each other we’re ready. That sounds good? And um… cry it out, I guess.”

“What, so you can use it as a blackmail against me?” 

“Thanks for suggesting.”

“I hate you.”

“No. You. Don’t.” Each pause before a word is a boop on the tip of Rintarou’s nose. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Rintarou sits up and hops off the trunk, spreading his arms amidst the air and swirls around like a top in slow motion, dancing ballet. He jogs back to Motoya, doing a curtsy bow as he holds the tips of his hoodie as if it were a gown. “Do you dance, Komori-san?”

Understanding the timely incorporation of the reference, he plays along as he allows Rintarou to pull him off the trunk and they intertwine their hands, then he snakes the free one on his waist and feels Rintarou’s cold hand on his shoulder. “Not if I can help it.” 

“We did it so much better than Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky.”

“Who?”

There’s only a fit of giggles to reply to him, and they keep dancing and dancing, even as the moon becomes brighter and brighter. A half moon. “You are my other half, I hope you will be, Sunarin.” 

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

“Stop it with the references, Rin. It doesn’t even connect anymore.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Nighttime drives are nice. Tenderness, too. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hehe first try of komosuna! i hope i did them justice along with this trope because it's my first time to write it as well :o)
> 
> the fic is heavily inspired by tenderness & nighttime drive by jay som!!


End file.
